Deepening Spiritual Community through Experiential Wisdom
Omaha, Friday, May 18, 2018
Jesus told Nathaniel, “Add love to your philosophy.” My recipe for today is, “Add philosophy to your love.”
To deepen spiritual community, let’s take charge of the activist tendency to fall into a hectic, crazy overcommitted lifestyle, and set aside time to study philosophy in order to promote holistic growth in love. Wisdom purifies spiritual understanding. By growing in mutual support through experiential, study, we become increasingly capable of ministering in the present planetary crisis with its urgent need for experiential wisdom. Imagine that we’re starting to craft our personal holistic growth projects, and that this session will be followed up by a year-long series of quarterly Zoom sessions to support you.
The new philosophy of living: Our guide to holistic growth
“Cosmic truth, universe beauty, and divine goodness” guide our thinking, feeling, and doing through “the truths of science, philosophy, and spiritual experience; the beauties of the physical creation, the charm of intellectual art; [religion’s moral mandates], and the grandeur of genuine character achievement.” (43.2-5) 2:7.9-12.
These seven phases can be displayed in a matrix . . . in relation to love.
Each phase can be embraced holistically.
Scientific living—establish facts, understand scientifically, and embrace cosmic evolution in biological responsibility, personal growth, and contribution to planetary progress.
Philosophical living: Good decisions integrate the three intuitions of cosmic mind (16:6).
Spiritual living: the many-sided gospel.
Living in the beauties of nature: general vitality and the balance of positive emotion.
Artistic living: appreciation of the arts, intelligent planning, liberated spontaneity.
Morally active living: the sequence of stages of the rule of living, the golden rule (147:4).
A character dominated by love: integration of all the virtues developed in each of the previous six phases.
Additional resources: Living in Truth, Beauty, and Goodness by Jeffrey Wattles (Kindle and softcover) and see the other documents on the philosophy of living linked to the parent page of this document.
Do we need any more motivation for this project? We are on trial before the bar of human need. Here’s the quote.
118:8.6 (1302.3) When culture advances overfast, when material achievement outruns the evolution of worship-wisdom, then does civilization contain within itself the seeds of retrogression; and unless buttressed by the swift augmentation of experiential wisdom, such human societies will recede from high but premature levels of attainment, and the “dark ages” of the interregnum of wisdom will bear witness to the inexorable restoration of the imbalance between self-liberty and self-control.
Experiential wisdom in the truths of spiritual experience
Let’s learn to live so that the gospel animates our intuitions of cosmic truth.
Jesus’ thick—many-sided—gospel of the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man (this gospel seems thin if we regard it merely on the level of fact).
And let’s talk about worship if we have the chance!
Wisdom in relating the gospel movement and The Urantia Book movement.
For those who aspire to be responsible custodians of the fifth epochal revelation in this post-Bestowal Son age, take note. Jesus became expert in revealing his Paradise Father to “all ages and stages” of mortal creatures. Said Jesus to the miller, “In your living and loving ministry, serve spiritual food in attractive form, and suited to the capacity of receptivity of each of your inquirers.” See the cluster of documents on this topic here. By your lives and artistic teaching, whet appetites (promote discovery that attracts inquiry) (1726.1-3) 155:1.4-6.